I guess I failed at explaining this, since this wasn't at all the point of analogy. Sorry about that. The point was that we are validated (or not) through our associations -- i.e., the "Mar Thoma Orthodox Church" you found
would be a valid example
if the Church it was presenting itself as a part of actually recognized it as being what it says it is, but they/we don't, so this is just one of many (not as many as the Chalcedonians', but many) modern-day splinter groups claiming to be a part of Orthodoxy that isn't.
If we take this principle and move it sort of 'one level up' from looking at individual churches within a communion (or claiming to be) to looking at communions themselves, we run into the second problem your posts don't seem to recognize: as the Oriental Orthodox (Non-Chalcedonians) and the Eastern Orthodox (Chalcedonians)
as communions do not recognize one another as belonging to the same Church (i.e., I can't go to a Russian Orthodox Church and receive communion there, and Russian Orthodox can't come to a Coptic Orthodox Church and receive communion there, barring a mutual agreement between our respective bishops), pointing out that there are different groups calling themselves "Orthodox" that don't recognize each other is neither surprising, nor does it say anything in itself that would actually harm Orthodox ecclesiology or theology. All you're basically showing is that you've found two communions that both claim Orthodoxy but don't recognize each other as being Orthodox, but this is really not news to anyone in either of those communions, nor does anyone in either of them come to the conclusion that you seem to that no one can therefore actually
be Orthodox and it's all just a matter of opinion or something. Orthodoxy is not really a matter of opinion; it's a matter of our existence and mindset. This is part of the reason behind why your calling HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic's writing an "interesting but unorthodox opinion" has hit a sour note with everyone: HH is recognized as being fully orthodox by everyone -- Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, as far as I know High-Church Protestants (Anglicans, etc.), etc. So it's like shorthand for saying "I don't know the difference between a figure who articulated the precise faith that we still hold to today and gave to us many of the fundamental terms that are basic to the understanding of traditional Christian theology and myself, so I'm going to say it's all a matter of opinion, and I don't like his, so it's
unorthodox." Okay. Thanks for playing. Bye.
It's not that they
don't exist (though something existing is a pretty low bar), but that they aren't what they claim they are. Again, we are validated or not through our associations. This is the same reason why I don't go on to any of the specifically Chacledonian (Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic) subforums of this website and start spouting a bunch of nonsense that they are not 'real' churches because they aren't in communion with the bishops of my Church.
They don't recognize
my Church as being what it says it is, either, so of course they don't recognize our bishops, since they weren't ordained by Chalcedonian (EO or RC) bishops coming from their own respective churches. That's literal proof that we are not in communion, to say nothing of the varying theological and ecclesiological disagreements we may have, depending on which communion you are comparing with which (as the EO and RC aren't in communion with one another, either).
It's actually not like that at all. There are no
denominations within in Orthodoxy, but rather two
separate communions which both claim to be Orthodox (but differ with one another, primarily on the theology that was accepted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and some related issues, and hence are not in communion), and then a bunch of splinter groups from both (more from the Eastern Orthodox/Chalcedonians, since they are by far the larger of the two).
We don't pretend like the other doesn't exist, but we don't say that they are Orthodox just because
they say they are. Admittedly the range of opinions on this matter is probably greater in my communion than in theirs (as far as I can tell from the internet, anyway; in real life, I've never really had any problem with any of them), but either way that doesn't matter, since personal opinions don't determine who is actually in communion with who. That's why we have holy synods composed of bishops to represent us and make decisions on our behalf as a church (e.g., the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Holy Synod of the Armenian Apostolic Church, etc.), and could theoretically come together in a communion-wide council to make decisions that would involve the entire communion, as would have to be the case if we were to enter into open communion with the Chalcedonians. (This is how, e.g., the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Chruch -- OO and EO roughly 'equivalent' churches, both claiming descent from the ancient See of Antioch -- can agree to commune each other's faithful without meaning that the OO and EO are reunited
as a communion; this is also why, administratively-speaking, the mutual lifting of the anathemas of 1054 by the Greek EO and Latin RC patriarchs back in the 1960s didn't magically heal the EO/RC schism.)